Commons Church Podcast

John 6:1-15 *** Jesus endlessly fascinates. There is not a single moment, word, or action in his life that is not pregnant with something more.  There is a qualitative difference that is unmistakable about Jesus, though. John puts in simply, "In him was life and that life was the light of all people." (John 1:4) As John writes about Jesus, he knows that he is touching the infinite. He charmingly s...

John 5 *** Jesus endlessly fascinates. There is not a single moment, word, or action in his life that is not pregnant with something more.  There is a qualitative difference that is unmistakable about Jesus, though. John puts in simply, "In him was life and that life was the light of all people." (John 1:4) As John writes about Jesus, he knows that he is touching the infinite. He charmingly says t...

John 4 *** Jesus endlessly fascinates. There is not a single moment, word, or action in his life that is not pregnant with something more.  There is a qualitative difference that is unmistakable about Jesus, though. John puts in simply, "In him was life and that life was the light of all people." (John 1:4) As John writes about Jesus, he knows that he is touching the infinite. He charmingly says t...

Jesus endlessly fascinates. There is not a single moment, word, or action in his life that is not pregnant with something more.  There is a qualitative difference that is unmistakable about Jesus, though. John puts in simply, "In him was life and that life was the light of all people." (John 1:4) As John writes about Jesus, he knows that he is touching the infinite. He charmingly says that the wor...

“There is little doubt that our doctrine of the Holy Spirit is one of the least developed areas in mainstream Christianity.” —Alwyn Marriage Whether you’ve been around the Christian story for a while—or you’ve recently started exploring, there’s a certain mystique around the idea of God as Spirit. And that mystique is all the more compelling when we acknowledge that many of us feel some distance b...

In my mind talking about the nature of God shouldn't be an exercise in gatekeeping—all of our God-talk is provisional, after all. There are, however, some important ideas in the Christian imagination of God that we are attempting to preserve with the doctrine of Trinity. So let's talk about that. ★ Support this podcast ★

Acts 10 + 15  *** “There is little doubt that our doctrine of the Holy Spirit is one of the least developed areas in mainstream Christianity.” —Alwyn Marriage Whether you’ve been around the Christian story for a while—or you’ve recently started exploring, there’s a certain mystique around the idea of God as Spirit. And that mystique is all the more compelling when we acknowledge that many of us fe...

John 14 *** “There is little doubt that our doctrine of the Holy Spirit is one of the least developed areas in mainstream Christianity.” —Alwyn Marriage Whether you’ve been around the Christian story for a while—or you’ve recently started exploring, there’s a certain mystique around the idea of God as Spirit. And that mystique is all the more compelling when we acknowledge that many of us feel som...

“There is little doubt that our doctrine of the Holy Spirit is one of the least developed areas in mainstream Christianity.” —Alwyn Marriage Whether you’ve been around the Christian story for a while—or you’ve recently started exploring, there’s a certain mystique around the idea of God as Spirit. And that mystique is all the more compelling when we acknowledge that many of us feel some distance b...

Toward. Away. Against: This is a really simple way to think about our default reaction to conflict, our stress reaction to conflict, and how as healthy humans we can choose to respond with the strategy that is most appropriate in any given encounter. ★ Support this podcast ★

The experience of the global pandemic has changed us. And it has changed our friendships. Some may have deepened, while others have dwindled without getting a solid chance to take root. Let's begin the new year with a conversation on that deeply personal connection with others we all long for but often struggle to cultivate. Friendship is essential to our humanity. It is also a gift that we are fr...

The experience of the global pandemic has changed us. And it has changed our friendships. Some may have deepened, while others have dwindled without getting a solid chance to take root. Let's begin the new year with a conversation on that deeply personal connection with others we all long for but often struggle to cultivate. Friendship is essential to our humanity. It is also a gift that we are fr...

The experience of the global pandemic has changed us. And it has changed our friendships. Some may have deepened, while others have dwindled without getting a solid chance to take root. Let's begin the new year with a conversation on that deeply personal connection with others we all long for but often struggle to cultivate. Friendship is essential to our humanity. It is also a gift that we are fr...

The experience of the global pandemic has changed us. And it has changed our friendships. Some may have deepened, while others have dwindled without getting a solid chance to take root. Let's begin the new year with a conversation on that deeply personal connection with others we all long for but often struggle to cultivate. Friendship is essential to our humanity. It is also a gift that we are fr...

Try this thought experiment. What moments in your life do you consider pivotal? Maybe it’s a big trip, grad school graduation, or the birth of a child. Now, imagine yourself taking ten minutes to write from memory what happened, how you felt, and who said what. Next, imagine someone else who was with you writing down what they saw, how they felt, and who said what. Can you imagine the differences?...

Try this thought experiment. What moments in your life do you consider pivotal? Maybe it’s a big trip, grad school graduation, or the birth of a child. Now, imagine yourself taking ten minutes to write from memory what happened, how you felt, and who said what. Next, imagine someone else who was with you writing down what they saw, how they felt, and who said what. Can you imagine the differences?...

Try this thought experiment. What moments in your life do you consider pivotal? Maybe it’s a big trip, grad school graduation, or the birth of a child. Now, imagine yourself taking ten minutes to write from memory what happened, how you felt, and who said what. Next, imagine someone else who was with you writing down what they saw, how they felt, and who said what. Can you imagine the differences?...

Try this thought experiment. What moments in your life do you consider pivotal? Maybe it’s a big trip, grad school graduation, or the birth of a child. Now, imagine yourself taking ten minutes to write from memory what happened, how you felt, and who said what. Next, imagine someone else who was with you writing down what they saw, how they felt, and who said what. Can you imagine the differences?...

Try this thought experiment. What moments in your life do you consider pivotal? Maybe it’s a big trip, grad school graduation, or the birth of a child. Now, imagine yourself taking ten minutes to write from memory what happened, how you felt, and who said what. Next, imagine someone else who was with you writing down what they saw, how they felt, and who said what. Can you imagine the differences?...

Church tradition holds that 16th-century reformer Martin Luther despised the epistle of James, going so far as to say that it contained little to none of “the nature of the Gospel.”  One of Luther’s biggest complaints was that this early Christian letter contains only the slightest mention of Jesus, which is why he thought it had so little to offer.  But part of why we think the book of James dese...

Church tradition holds that 16th-century reformer Martin Luther despised the epistle of James, going so far as to say that it contained little to none of “the nature of the Gospel.”  One of Luther’s biggest complaints was that this early Christian letter contains only the slightest mention of Jesus, which is why he thought it had so little to offer.  But part of why we think the book of James dese...

Church tradition holds that 16th-century reformer Martin Luther despised the epistle of James, going so far as to say that it contained little to none of “the nature of the Gospel.”  One of Luther’s biggest complaints was that this early Christian letter contains only the slightest mention of Jesus, which is why he thought it had so little to offer.  But part of why we think the book of James dese...

Church tradition holds that 16th-century reformer Martin Luther despised the epistle of James, going so far as to say that it contained little to none of “the nature of the Gospel.”  One of Luther’s biggest complaints was that this early Christian letter contains only the slightest mention of Jesus, which is why he thought it had so little to offer.  But part of why we think the book of James dese...

Church tradition holds that 16th-century reformer Martin Luther despised the epistle of James, going so far as to say that it contained little to none of “the nature of the Gospel.”  One of Luther’s biggest complaints was that this early Christian letter contains only the slightest mention of Jesus, which is why he thought it had so little to offer.  But part of why we think the book of James dese...

One of Jesus' key ideas was that of the kingdom of God. An imagination for the world as it could be pervades not only Jesus' teaching but all of his interactions. In fact, this is a uniquely human ability to think in sequence and to understand meaning through the lens of past, present, and future. Simply put, we live in a storied world, and one of the most important questions for any story is, "Wh...